The Way We Were
by FlamingWolf
Summary: Each of the characters reveals what they really felt regarding the people on their support conversation lists.


I had loved him from the time that we were infants, always looking up to him, always wanting to be exactly like him. No matter how many times they told me that noble women couldn't learn the sword, I wanted some form of weaponry, just to be like him. He taught me, despite all opposition. He was protective, kind. I wanted never to be separated from him. He was mine.

But there was something else, something there between us as we began to grow up. There was something wrong in the way that everyone else watched us, something wrong in the way the courtiers snickered as we walked down the hall together, hand in hand. There was something wrong in the worried look that father gave us. And there was something wrong in the way he looked at me. It worried me, almost as if there was a secret that he wanted me to know, and was afraid of me knowing. He became possessive, and I was happy when he left, though I cried. Maybe when he came back, everything would be alright between us again.

Maybe everything would be as it had been. We would be the way were were.

&

This was a different kind of love. He was older, more mature, a warrior for as long as I could remember. I watched him in the court. He gave me all the respect due to the princess, but any fool could see that he thought of me as a child, that his devotion was to the crown, not a gangly little girl with skinned up knees. It nearly killed him to be ordered to take the girl child and run.

Yet my heart sang when he took that wound for me. I knew he was undefeatable, that a wound to his sword arm was nothing to him. I made much of it. I had to. I had to let him see me more as one of the giddy noblewomen, fussing over a meaningless wound.

It was better that than a child. At least I had grown into a woman capable of flirting.

He did his duty. He guarded and advised me. But I wished for more.

&

She was my best friend from the time we were children. I went to visit her as often as I could, and I was truly glad to see her everytime. The only problem was that it was obvious she saw my twin as a potential future consort. She often joked that we could truly be sisters that way.

In that respect, I saw her as a rival. She wanted to take him away from me when he was mine. We never quarreled, but I saw to it that whenever she saw him, I was always in the same room. I refused to let her see him alone.

She became quieter and more withdrawn when we were together.

It wasn't long before I saw that she didn't want to visit with me. She wanted him.

&

Her brother had always looked down on me. He always thought that I was pointless, a woman pretending to true combat. He looked on her training of a Pegasus to be sweet, never thinking that she would actually try to ride her beautiful pet into battle.

When he found out that she had ridden into battle anyway, he blamed me for 'encouraging her pretensions'. He cared about her. He really did. It was just that his caring made me into a villain.

There were times I wanted to take his bow and use it. On him.

&

Nobility always needs a follower. He was well-enough as far as that went. Towering chivalry, 'until death rends me from thy side' towards my brother. Hero-worshipped my own. He lacked Franz's innocence, despite the similarities between them. Franz was more adorable.

Maybe if he were able to get the lance out of his horse's butt, he would have been OK.

&

He impressed me with his powers. The moment I first met him, he made me feel safer, as if I were fragile and I needed his power to keep me from being devoured by the wolves. There was a towering presence about him.

He scared me.

&

She embarrassed me. I suppose she had heart, and it was rather inspiring how she was convinced that evil would always win, no matter what it threw at you. It's just that I couldn't STAND the way that she was so flighty, the way she played up to all the old stereotypes of the princess who was utterly useless, yet determined that her enemies would give way before her rank.

It ashamed me to think others may think that of me. That that was the way I was.


End file.
